RE: Sweep Picking Thread

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS
Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:47 pm
by
Tom (deleted)

Quote: Cliff wrote in post #95I've been practicing trills for a good few months now, but I've never concentrated on speed before - just trying to make them accurate and even. Since hitting this wall at the beginning of the week, I've been concentrating on speed with my trills. I'm pretty disappointed to find that, with first and pinky trills, I max out at a bit less than 8 notes per second. How is everyone else doing in this regard?

I'll sit and play some 1-string legato thing with hammer-ons and pull-offs like on the 5-7-8-frets on high E. I'll sit in front of the TV and it can take hours till I somehow reach (without trying) a point where it gets relaxed and very fluid. At that point is when I get decent speed as well, although I've not measured it up there because starting to fiddle with the metronome tends to throw me out of that place. However, I try to go into every practice with that in mind, and focus solely on being relaxed and getting some force through velocity rather than "loading up" on the fingers, or to compare with the Bruce Lee video: to punch without telegraphing or winding up. The smaller motions, I reckon the better because it's less distance to travel. The more relaxed, the faster it'll be, and that speed hitting the fretboard will make up for some lack of strength. I think it also helps develop strength used at the right time. Just my speculations, though.

For practice, I think we all will have our strength and weaknesses. Different things will make our fingers burn. I get happy when I feel mine burn, and what I found does it is to instead of spanning across 4 frets for my 1-string practice, I'll be sure to also make it 5 and 6 frets. This puts, for example, my pinky in a place where it feels weak, and it puts a strain on my fingers that I get to deal with overcoming. In addition, it makes the 4-fret-range feel so much easier when I go back to it.

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

Diego - are those timings at 4 notes per beat!? You're a monster if they are. I'm fine without the file, but thanks very much. I'm practicing just the two-finger trills at the moment, so it's easy to remember where I'm at. I used to record my progress like that with Stetina's Speed Mechanics book, but often times I'd find that on any given day I couldn't match what I'd recorded previously, which was a little disheartening. Now I try and practice an exercise at the same tempo for a week, in the hopes that it's good and solid by the end of the week. If it is, I crank it up a little for the next week.

Tom - I agree about the small motions. I notice that if I practice the trills immediately before the sweeps, then I do the sweeps with better technique, less pull-away with my pinky etc, and it helps a lot. Still something I'm working on. (Ladders help with this too of course.) Alas, my wife rarely lets me practice trills in front of the tele, though I swear they're pretty inaudible over Real Housewives...

Anyway, last night I managed 144bpm with the sweeps. I seem to be able to do it again today, so I'm hoping to up the speed a notch on Monday. Here's the video. Let me know what you think, and if I'm fooling myself (again!) and need to slow down some:

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS
Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:29 am
by
Tom (deleted)

I think it looks like you're doing good. The technique looks great. I can definitely see how some more practice will make it gradually sound tighter. I think at 0:26, you're on to a pretty clean sound, but at the other parts, you could work on the tones not ringing into each other, so maybe focus on slowing down to clean up the muting? I think if you work on strongly articulating the notes that should be articulated, it'll become more apparent what needs better muting. That aside, technique looks like you've got it down. I mention the muting parts not to be a downer, but because it's something you can do while stuck at this speedbump and still feel very, very rewarded when seeing the weekly progress. :-)

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

Thanks Tom. I'll definitely keep an eye/ear out for the notes not ringing into each. I definitely don't want to be upping the speed with a bad technique (I've done that *far* too many times in the past). I'm pretty happy, since I've managed to drill the three basic shapes tonight at this speed for five minutes each. For some reason, the diminished chord gives me the most trouble. I'm guessing it's a finger independence problem between the pinky and third finger (since the other two shapes use the second).

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS
Mon Sep 02, 2013 5:47 am
by
Tom (deleted)

Those fingers give me a lot of grief, too. I've found that sweep-walking from E to E (and back up and down again) doing 5 on E with third finger, 6 on A with pinky, 5 with third on D, etc and so forth up and down creates a most nauseating burn in my hand and a bit of a headache because I miss a lot of notes. Very unlike doing 5 and 6 on the E, then 5 and 6 on A, etc. Great drill, though. Perhaps mess around a little finding positions where your 3rd and 4th finger weaknesses are painfully obvious and exercise that a few minutes between the sweeps -- I stay motivated during drills like that by thinking "yes, it's weak, but it can't get much weaker than this, so in a day or two, I'll see results and be stronger". That's how I stay motivated during the most mundane drills, I keep telling myself each time I hit the strings, I get a little better. And I believe it. :-)

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

Thanks Tom. That's a subset of Pebber's ladder exercises, if I'm not mistaken. I practice that every night. Again, I don't push the speed, and I practice a little higher on the fretboard, but it doesn't seem to cause me too many troubles. The variation where you stretch three semitones between the third and four fingers is a different matter, however :).

This is a response to Scott's exhortation to practice the Rising Force solo. I've been working on this for a while, at much slower speed than I'm trying to push the other sweeps. So I'm still less than half the speed of the recorded solo, and even then it's pretty sloppy. I found it quite a challenge to prevent the barred notes from ringing into each, and to shift distant positions quickly. Also, the final descending scale is a complete fail. Anyway, here it is:

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS
Fri Sep 06, 2013 8:27 am
by
Tom (deleted)

This 2-string lick has been on my mind, so I spoke to my friend the Yngwie-fan. He said he plays that lick as a sweep, and he fingerroll-mutes with the barring left index-finger. He said it's impossible to play without sweeping (picking down on two adjacent strings, in this case.) I then consulted my friend the virtuoso. He cryptically said it's a good lick to practice both inside picking and sweeping. Sweeping can be played faster, but it sounds differently. And to round it off like Yoda he said "speed isn't everything, different techniques give different sounds"...

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

If it's Yoda, it probably needs mixing up a little: "Sounds from different techniques are given: not everything is speed" or something.

Yep, I'm using the finger-roll, but the technique is not yet ingrained. If I take great care, I can do it, but without thinking either the notes bleed or are not properly articulated.

Funnily enough, in the tab I have, the lick is different, with a pull off on the high E followed by a repeated pair of notes on the B - no sweeping at all. But the Ursin version sounds better (and is probably easier to play).

After climbing my wall last weekend, I seem to have fallen back down on the wrong side. I became overly concerned with the timing, and it seems now I can't get much past 126bpm without it sounding like crap. Very disheartening. I suspect it's a case of having to go by feel at the higher speeds - if you focus too much on individual notes, there's not enough time to perform the lick properly. Anyway, I'm mighty pissed off about it.

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS
Fri Sep 06, 2013 12:32 pm
by
Tom (deleted)

Hmm, the lick might be different because Yngwie-fan said "that's not how Rising Force solo goes" when I asked him how he plays the E15pE12B12-lick. Though he specifically said he would play the 15-12-12-thing using sweep. I'm getting together with him next weekend. Will get a listen to Rising Force unless we hear differently on here.

I know the feeling about when it speeds up. I think it's the brain that takes more time getting used to processing the music than anything. Not so long ago, I couldn't comprehend music at the BPM:s I can today. As long as you keep at it and really want it, the brain seems to work out ways to interpret it, so stay on course and keep hitting the notes. Going with the natural flow of things, it sounds like timing and clarity at a lower speed is what you're best suited to do for a couple of days, so why not go with it -- as long as you stay at it, you're doing something that with each note improves your playing. :-)

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

I have seen the "Rising Force" solo transcribed 2 different ways. In the Yngwie REH video and also the Yngwie "Odyssey" tab book it was an upstroke then pull off from 15 to 12 on the high E and then the sweep part...down on 12thfret B string and down on 12th fret E string. Repeat. So, that's how I have always done it.

Many years later I saw a guy playing it on youtube. He was doing it starting with a downstroke on the E string... still with the pull off from 15 to 12... and then the double pick on the B string 12th fret Repeat...which would also produce a sweep when you return to the E string starting on a downstroke. (So...down on e ... pulloff...up on b, down on b, then back to down on e to repeat)

That made me curious about the tab in the REH video and the Odyssey tab book being wrong...which wouldn't surprise me in the least.

RE: Sweep Picking Thread

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS
Fri Sep 13, 2013 8:34 am
by
Tom (deleted)

It's the "finger roll" on the barring finger. Yngwie-fan said "it takes some practice" (and laughed), but it's what does the muting. I'm sure you know the roll, but for everyone's sake, you keep the barred index-finger in place through the whole deal, but going from B to E, you lift the fingertip slightly to silence the B-string, and from E to B you press down the fingertip on B and oh-so-slightly raise the pad of the finger to mute the E. Probably something I'd myself need to start at 20 BPM to train my brain into using.